chicago was shut down with two feet of snow and 60-mile-an-hour winds when a blizzard hammered the city. it caused 36 deaths, stranded 1,500 people on lake shore drive, which i go back and forth on every day and still find it hard to imagine, 1,500 people stuck on lake shore drive. it resulted in $3.9 billion in losses. april was the wettest april in 116 years in the midwest, forcing the mississippi and missouri rivers to flood thousands of square miles. this is 2011 i'm talking about. there were 326 tornadoes in may throughout the midwest and southern u.s., resulting in the deadliest may since 1933. wildfires burned 3 million acres of property across the western states, causing over a billion dollars in damages. and hurricane irene devastated the atlantic coast, causing $4.3 billion in damage. a very small amount compared to sandy but significant still for those affected. nationwide, the financial consequences of weather-related disasters and climate change hit an historic new high last year. u.s. disasters cost over $55 billion in damages. federal, state and local governments are payi